


Atlas

by beans_on_toast



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy alone with her thoughts, Andy has some PTSD with being cuffed, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Mention of bleeding, Post-Canon, Wake up restrained, Whumptober 2020, reference to past trauma, they're not great thoughts to be honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26777488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beans_on_toast/pseuds/beans_on_toast
Summary: Yet Andy felt each passing moment as an eternity. Her life was a weighted scale. The treacherous moments built upon her aching shoulders as the world weighed down on Atlas.I pre-date him. So the world weighs on Atlas as time weighs on me.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952257
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober 2020. 
> 
> Prompt #1: Let's hang out some time: Waking up restrained
> 
> Andy wakes up tied up and has a lot of thoughts whilst waiting to be rescued. Emotional whump. Mention of blood.

Andy was five hours late for her check-in. 

Five hours should be insignificant. Twenty four hours to a day. Three hundred sixty five days to a year. Ten years to a decade. One hundred years to a century. _One thousand years to a millennium._

How many hours was that? Was there a word for the number of hours that had slipped through her fingers? They were as numerous as grains of sand on a beach. An hour was nothing. Five hours were inconsequential. 

Yet Andy felt each passing moment as an eternity. Her life was a weighted scale. The treacherous moments built upon her aching shoulders as the world weighed down on Atlas. 

_I pre-date him. So the world weighs on Atlas as time weighs on me._

The thought was flippant and drew a laugh from her. She dabbed her chapped lips with her tongue but it is not soothing. Her mouth was dry and she felt parched. She moved her arms and the sting of her wrists forced a hiss from her lips. The pain was hardly unbearable, she had been killed with every weapon invented by mankind. This chafing at her skin should be nothing. _Was nothing._

Six hours brought with it the aching. 

She has stopped pulling at the ropes, instead focusing on finding a position to lessen the ache in her shoulders. If she pulled her legs under her _just so_ and pressed one foot against the other calf... The moan that escaped her echoed around the empty room. Her naked legs were now removed from the blankets and goose bumps raised along her skin. She shifted again, looking at the clothes strewn about the floor. 

She was cold. She was tired. She was stupid, _so stupid._

Time was uncaring, pressing down on her. 

She was not sure how many hours it is now. Seven? Eight? She was shivering. Andromache the Scythian had lived and died in the heat. In the cold. She had been stabbed, shot, and speared. _She had drowned and been burned alive_. She flinched from that thought. She had been skirting around it for hours now.

_For years. For centuries. What is the point in lying now, Andromache?_

She did not cry. She had cried enough for the ocean and there was nothing left for her. She pulled at the ropes, felt the pain that would not heal. She contemplated dislocating a finger, breaking a bone, but dismissed it. It would not heal. She would not heal.

She was going to die. Finally. Properly. _She was going to die._

She tugged again, hard. She was angry. She felt the violence, _thousands of years of violence_ , flare in her gut. She pulled and pulled and pulled. Her body was mortal now and it ached. It bruised. It needed rest and she was so tired.

_She was so stupid._

It took her a moment to understand the sensation running down her arm. She twisted her face to see. Her whole body convulsed. A shiver of shock. Pain. Revulsion.

She was bleeding. She was bleeding and not stopping. She was not healing. She would not heal. She was going to die. She had pulled so hard she was bleeding, just like…

_Just like…_

_Just you and me. Until the end._

Hands grabbed her and she fought. She wrenched her shoulder, pain flaring down her neck. Her face was wet. Her voice was rough, raw. Had she been screaming? Her face was wet. Was she bleeding? Her arms, her shoulders. _Aching_.

‘Shh, shh boss. It’s okay. It’s me.’ Warm hands, a warm body. Joe was holding her. He pulled the sheet up over her. Her legs were blue. She tried to collect her thoughts and tried to come back to now. This moment. She needed to be here, in this moment.

It’s not what time takes, it’s what it leaves behind.

And it pressed and pressed and _pressed_. 

And Andromache the Scythian was finally, _finally_ , running out of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if I left out any tags!
> 
> Come say hi on my TOG [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/hyper-fixate)!


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